It's long been said that you should take only photographs and leave only footprints when you visit a national park. Well, a dispute over whether Native Americans can legally collect plants in the parks has prompted a group to call for a federal investigation into whether the National Park Service is looking the other way.

A summer archeological field program at Great Smoky Mountains National Park offered more than science for a group of students from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians—it also allowed them to connect with their ancestral past.

In an ironic development considering its role in tracking the nation's history and its efforts to preserve civility in national parks, the National Park Service's practice of requiring permits for public gatherings, demonstrations, or "expressions of views" has been found unconstitutional by an appellate court.

Glance at a map of the Eastern Seaboard and a number of intriguing national parks jump out: Acadia National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Everglades National Park. But which one to visit? If you had to choose between Acadia and Great Smoky, which of the two would be at the top of your list?

True to its title, this quiz tests your knowledge of trees in the national parks. Answers are at the end. If we catch you peeking, we'll make you write on the whiteboard 100 times: " Quantified Tree Risk Assessment provides a framework for assessing the three components of tree-failure risk; probability of failure, impact potential, and target value."

It's more than appropriate that this year, the 75th anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway, that when you visit the parkway you get out and take a hike. And Randy Johnson is ready to tell you where to go.

National Park Service managers must do a better job "to advance natural resource stewardship and science" throughout the agency, according to an independent review of the Park Service's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate.

As we bring an end to our week-long fund-raising drive to keep the Traveler on-line, we'd like to thank the many readers who responded with donations, and make a final request to those sitting on the fence.

Noting that the younger generations are "taking on the mantle of the outdoors," National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis and other officials solicited suggestions on how to connect people with the outdoors during a North Carolina stop on the nationwide tour of America's Great Outdoor Initiative.